San Diego Participant Feedback

Here is an overview of the overall feedback on the course, 62% of participants rated the course a 7 or higher.

Below I compile participant feedback for all quantifiable questions for each facilitator on the left side of the tab, and qualitative feedback on the right side.

Facilitator Feedback

Adelfa Hegarty

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Adelfa Hegarty

Discussions

Alisha Powers

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Alisha Powers

Excellent

Teachers sharing their thoughts and the presentation was helpful

Many teachers agree we are unhappy with the holes in the curriculum, having to print
everything, no homework, no student access to Learnzillion.

Ashmeet Sahni

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Ashmeet Sahni

We had a chance to really look at a lesson.

Bethany Brown

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Bethany Brown

talking to peers about what works

homework suggestions

Great job!

A lot of great discussions.

Nothing

Thank you for focusing on the math!

Learned about effective questioning.

More time in break out rooms.

conversation with other grade level alike teachers, time to read through the IM curriculum

I want more supports mentioned for Special Education in these Learnzillion PDs.
Visuals or videos to complement the math lessons would be great. It does not seem to be
differentiated for different types of learners.

Breakout rooms to talk with other schools

Learnzillion site there seems to be so much clicking around to find the lesson, I wish
the site was more user friendly to find lessons and supports to that lesson more quickly/
easier ways

I liked how we looked at our grade level lesson

Nothing about facilitation skills. She was great.

Well prepared; patient with slow feedback from audience/teacher; clear explanation of
tasks; multiple invitations to engage

Nothing the facilitator did wrong. To me, this is such a dry subject and is not easy
to engage teachers at the end of a workday. I think more lesson instruction and less
philosophy instruction would be more helpful to me as a teacher who is new to embracing
teaching math this way.

There is way too much focus on equity, and there is not nearly enough focus on the math.
One of our facilitators had absolutely no elementary math experience. It is BORING. This
seems like such a waste of time when we could be really diving into the curriculum.

The internet only went down at Sessions, and at PBE it worked!

Everything else. PLEASE focus on the math.

informational

thanks!

focused and clear

Jamboard

information

Callie Herring

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Callie Herring

More time....

Learning more about who we choose to call on when we are soliciting answers from my
students.

More time...

Nothing to add.

I have a better understanding of funnel vs focused questions

Nothing to add. Just more time in breakout groups to converse

She was a great facilitator!

Learning how to elicit student thinking and getting a chance to try on being a student

I would not have changed anything

At first I had no clue what I was going to learn today because I didn't participate in the
summer learning. Through the training I now understand elicit thinking. Well done.

the pacing and questioning using the activities were spot on to model the questions.

nothing that I can think of

Understanding how we can elicit student thinking.

More time...

In general: If there is an expectation that we complete a task through another site or
link, it would be helpful if there is a visual run through via shared screen of the steps
to access. This will allow all learning styles to be addressed. Thank you for the wealth
of knowledge that has been shared over the last few days :)

The opportunity to engage with facilitators, to ask questions, share our thoughts and to
shared lived experiences based within the context of mathematical learning. Sharing and
explaining the thought behind the pedagogy, and allowing participants to share with other
colleagues in breakout rooms trying things on.

Continue adjusting based on the needs of the participants, and being open shared
experiences that have been both positive and negative. Continue immersing participants
in problems that our students will be engaged in and challenging us to have an open mind,
to think about our learners as successful mathematicians, and to create an philosophy
that is inclusive of all and believes ALL learners are mathematicians and to set those
philosophies into ACTION on a daily basis. Lastly to continue to challenge participants to
self-reflect so there can truly be transformative teaching which our students deserve.

Number talks and diving into effective teaching practices

Having more time to expand on the effective teaching practices

Nice that she allowed those who have been using IM to share their experiences.

Understanding the NCTM Effective practices with the Equity Standard. Great work!

Emily Griffin

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Emily Griffin

Good flow of the lesson

Emily Howard

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Emily Howard

Pace, assignment

0

good job

Structured well, pace was good.

Looking at an actual lesson

Everything

Small Groups

Was confused about the overall goal of the lesson or what the takeaway focus was, took me
a little to catch on.

I don't think that teachers need a theoretical breakdown of the program. We just want the
curriculum and how to use it.

Presenters were informative.

A faster jump into the curriculum. 5 hours of "what is math' is not needed.

lots of background information

lots of educational jargon

It was good. Just tough venue of zoom.

Looking at lessons

Showing lessons first so we can see where we are going

Very well paced

Pacing - and overview

Towards the end of the day - lots of content to process

Gregory Leap

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Gregory Leap

Practical focus in the unit that we are currently working on. Brainstorming on meaningful
questions to ask students.

This was the most useful PD with Teaching Lab that we've had yet.

Thank you for finally listening to our feedback and working with our district math team to
help design a PD that meets our needs. Focusing on different types of questions, working
in grade level groups to unpack the critical concepts and co-create questions for a
current lesson - these were all very useful tasks. I also appreciated that we are focusing
on a unit/lessons that we are currently working on so it was very relevant.

For once, I would have liked a little more time to work on the tasks at the end rather
than as much time in the beginning just reviewing the same things as usual.

Meeting other 8th grade teachers from a different school.

More work on diving in to Grade Level work to better understand the program.

This session was helpful because it was content specific. I liked the discussion on the
importance of learning goals. The ratio of break-out-room time to main-room time was good.

Relevant material.

Diving deeper into the Critical Concepts

maybe a little faster pace

Breakout rooms according to your preferred grade. I teach 3 grades and this was very
helpful!

Email follow up work with link.

I'm okay, sometimes you all go pretty fast because you are veteran math teachers and you
know where everything thing is on the different math sites.

Knowing that I am not the only one re-learning what I forgot while learning what I don't
know.

I enjoyed the breakout sessions. I think they were timed well, not too long or too short

Really enjoying these classes Thank you

Critical concept map and focus questions

nothing

Looking at the math from the Student perspective

Nothing

It was a good lesson. I'm just tired at the end of the day. Also, I find students seem to
have a lack of confidence in their abilities. When we help them increase the foundational
skill of a unit, they feel more confident and start to enjoy math.

I understood what was going on.

Clearer instructions.

Breakout rooms were either too short or too long. Directions were not always clear. And
I've been using and teaching this curriculum for 3 years, I don't understand what I'm
supposed to be getting from this professional development. I feel like I'm mostly helping
the rest of the people from different schools who are newer to this curriculum when we are
in breakout rooms rather than learning anything new myself.

We started and ended on time.

It would be nice if this were more relevant. I feel like what we are learning, I already
learned from our district resource teachers/district math department over the last 2+
years. This is probably helpful for teachers new to the curriculum, but I'm not learning
anything new which is frustrating. There was a brief mention of culturally relevant
teaching, but it was very brief and nothing clear or concrete was given.

I apologize but these trainings have been very repetitive. I have been a part of the SDEM
for 3 years now and I have already been through these trainings. I would like to see more
about how to make these lessons more culturally relevant.

working with my co-teacher regarding our classes

nothing it went well

It was a good introduction to the material

Clear concise statements about directions - written or verbal

none at this time

It was quick and to the point

not sure at this time

I need more of the nuts and bolts of daily lesson facilitating rather that the reasoning
behind how it is equitable.

Seeing good math discussion.

nothing it was perfect

He was nice. not boring.

nothing.

Examples given and the breakout rooms

Time to work with other teachers.

The timing was well done and I did like the breakout rooms. The questions were relevant
and helpful to work through.

Respectfully, I didn't feel like I learned anything new.

Everything

Nothing

Great facilitator. Working as a student is always helpful

nothing

Breakout Rooms

technology and dialogue was smooth

the discourse that was promoted in breakouts.

I was satisfied with the session. I would like to get to the meat of the classroom
implementation work quicker, if anything.

Hanady Elsayed

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Hanady Elsayed

Looking forward to an upcoming lesson and practicing with team mates.

Collaboration and input on lessons and targeting student needs with thought provoking
questions. Identifying possible misperceptions and sharing ideas to afdress

She was great, but didn't know the program Learn Zillion that we use.

Breakout room with my grade level

Knowing more about the LearnZillion platform that we have to use for IM

Break out room conversation regarding preparing for a lesson

Learning about platforms

Hanady is very positive and knowledgeable. Love being in her sessions.

People are exhausted and stretched thin but I think they were engaged.

Continue to incorporate research cases that speak to the inequities in our math spaces.

The act of going into lessons that we are actually going to teach was very valuable. It
gave us the opportunity to read questions that were posed and to create a few on our own
that we could ask the students as we engage in the learning.

Additional time to process and discuss with whole group our thinking and to see the scope
and sequence of what our students learned before us and what's needed to solidify their
knowledge and thinking for moving forward to the next grade level.

Everything

More grade level practice. Looking more through IM

I am new to the Teaching Lab and feel very supported here in these PD sessions. Thank you!

Clarity in the approach to questioning so we focus on student understanding.

Looking at upcoming lessons.

Our breakout room in our grade level

More grade level practice looking through IM-there are so many parts to look at, it's
exhausting

great session!

discussion about questioning

nothing

More participants to share their thoughts.

Too many questions that I had to answer without any background. I was waiting for some
content and it never came. I feel like I gained nothing from this session except for more
confusion.

Opening

Needs to be more engaging and give us some content. I am still not sure what the role of
lab leaders are.

Good guidance by insructor.

I don'y think you need the techers talking as much as you need the instructor giving us
useful strategies. And don't call on random people. It makes them uncomfortable.

pacing

demonstrations and collaboration

I couldn't get to prework

Great job

Learning together

0

Opportunities to work in small breakout rooms. Sharing out other groups' work.

very supportive!

I missed Friday afternoon's session. I did the make-up.

Going through the units was valuable.

I wish I could have attended the live session.

Thanks for setting the participation norms early.

I think the level of involvement from the teachers.

I wasn't sure what we would be going over and there is a lot of language that is new
(learnzillion, nearpod, moodle, etc.) that can be confusing.

Great opportunities for discussion.

It seems like you needed more time.

Great conversation

Build in a break

the training was good

the conversation on students with different backgrounds

everything was good

Having important discussions regarding race and equity and math.

I really enjoyed the session but the length of the session was daunting.

It was useful to begin to look at the curriculum and dive into a lesson.

I feel like it took a long time to get to that point. Although the prior information was
essential, maybe it could have moved at a faster pace.

Good look at organization of lessons and importance of equity as well as conceptual based
learning.

I think it's impoertant to be clear that kids all learn at different paces and the grades
above should blame the grades below for deficiencies in a child's learning.

jamboards, asking us to share but not forcing us, I appreciate that

We were mis-informed thinking we were going to jump straight into new curriculum so it was
a rough start. However, principal confirmed we weren't expected to start the school year
with this and that helped alleviate the stress of soemthing new.

It was very good training

information provided

zoom links

I think that what went well was being supported and given the time to unpack the things
presented.

I really enjoyed the session but the length of the session was daunting.

Great Presentation

Clear information

time

Kelsey Wasser

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Kelsey Wasser

The opportunities for grade level collaboration

Thank you for giving us time to work on our grade-level content.

Great training.

Small groups

nothing

Emily Griffin has so much positive energy. She is a wonderful facilitator!

Breakout rooms

Nothing.

Great working with grade team.

Understanding building questions

My preparedness

This was the best session yet! Thank you...

Break Out Room Discussions

Getting paid... I hope the grant money is processed soon

Strong connection to what the teachers are grappling with right now.

It was great!

Great pacing and loved the different ways you asked for participation

Opportunities to work many times with grade level partners

I liked that we were able to work on a lesson that we will actually be teaching soon, that
was very helpful.

Perhaps a little more time to collaborate in the breakout rooms.

Breakout rooms

I think more awareness of other grade level standards so we could understand what students
needed to already know to help build focus questions.

safe learning environment

The breakout sessions

Maybe an example of quality questioning.

Good session

Time to work

Nothing

everything

I liked that my breakout room was with teachers from my school.

I feel it went a little fast for me because I am not good with computers but I hope next
time will be better.

Pacing of presentation

Session was fine. We understand internet issues, we've all had them at some point or
another during distance learning. As Pete the Cat would say, It's All Good!

I liked Activity 1 and low stress and the conversation around it.

I stress myself out when asked to respond, thinking I don't have the academic language to
share out. I am sure I am feeling like some of the students in my classroom.

Engagement

I think engagement with the Jamboard went well.

I think that doing the training after a day of teaching may have made it challenging for
most of us.

Awesome course

Group participation and collaboration

nothing

Great leading and modeling of teacher methods.

Seeing a lesson in action.

Nothing :)

It was a welcoming environment.

My prior knowledge.

The Jam Board breakouts.

This is not a great time because it's hard to focus after a full day of teaching.

Discussion

Kimberly Robertson

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Kimberly Robertson

The break out rooms.

Thanks for your time. You did great with little participation from the panel

Kimberly was great.

More time with lesson plans

Everything

breakout rooms with peers

nothing

Kimberly was great.

more help with actual lessons

Thank you

Breakout rooms

More time

Teacher collaboration

Kelsey Wasser

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Kristen Taylor

Group participation and conversation. Content felt relevant and useful.

I accidentally hit 6-12 when I meant to hit K-5. I am a K-5 teacher. She was very
knowledgable and patient.

The breakout room were useful.

Shorter Sessions. :-)

Talking about ideas with my grade level colleague.

A lot to cover in a short amount of time. It was a little stressful.

Good size group

More real world examples

Demonstration of how to teach the warm up.

Maybe pose discussion questions in a more informal way that makes people more comfortable
with sharing out in a small group. The content is meaningful and I think that if posed in
a different way can result in more conversation.

It all went well. We ended up having a good open communication.

Better understanding of the racial theory presented (more in depth knowledge), background
information about today's lesson, as well as a faster paced presentation.

we are already using a curriculum that addresses equity issues. It's aligned to the
standards. Coming up our philosophies was not a good use of time. We need to focus on
implementing a great curriculum, not proving why ist's a good curriculum.

I think we were a little uncomfortable on the whole group share outs this first time, we
may have needed some more community building to get there. Not many people shared.

Writing the purpose statement and discussing it with others. Thinking about the importance
of head heart and habits, discussing the enabling conditions for professional learning.

When we got to the "Equity based mathematics teaching practices", the bridge was not
strong from what we had just been talking about. We were struggling with the connection
and then the prompt and what our HOW and WHY is. I was really confused about what we were
supposed to be thinking about there and it felt like we were being guided in a certain
direction by the facilitator but I don't think we ever got there. Unfortunately, in our
small groups, not everyone was willing to stay focused on the task or seemed motivated to
do purposeful work around the task.

opportunity to share out

more time in the breakout rooms

The facilitator was encouraging and provided positive energy to the professional
development opportunities.

I was able to connect with other teachers.

A list of contacts would have been useful.

Nice to start to get to know everyone in the group. Looking foward to learning more.

nothing

The presenter was prepared with the materials needed to conduct the session.

Less note - taking scrolling and searching and filling out.

All the information being taught is a bit overwhelming. Too much to learn adequately in a
3 day bootcamp.

When in breakout rooms, sharing similar thoughts about the lessons and being overwhelmed
brought me a bit of peace as I was not the only one feeling the same way.

Given a little more time. Maybe extending the days and shortening the time a bit so it's
not as overwhelming.

NCTM Effective Teaching Practices

More time to dive into the curriculum

She made the day very engaging.

clear expectations. We got time to dive into some of the curriculum. I learned how to
facilitate a number talk.

She was not aware of the group's needs. The material was repetitive for a number of the
group and those individuals did not benefit from the training.

The pace.

New material. Time for teaching teams to work together to plan for the coming year.

Today went relatively smoothly, especially compared to yesterday (different facilitator).
Facilitator seemed more confident and purposeful.

I really enjoy the Tower of Hanoi activity. And having time to work on it independently.

The afternoon 45 minutes that was spent on "practicing" facilitating an Number Talk was
ridiculous. Half of us have been doing these for several years. Others were still trying
to understand how to interact with the curriculum. The sample warm ups chosen for us to
use seemed very random for people who were unfamiliar with them. More information on the
hows or whys might have been helpful. Also, I was hoping that we would be given time to
actually dig in to the materials/curriculum and start adapting and tweaking it so that
it is more culturally responsive and connecting/relatable for our students. Lastly, will
there be any conversation about filling in missing learning gaps from last year? We only
taught half of the curriculum to our students. This is going to be an issue.

I have been using the Illustrative curriculum for 3 years in my class now. Seeing as
though I was part of the research team that first started this initiative these last
few days have felt overwhelmingly repetitive. It would have been helpful to have had two
separate trainings one for those who are new to the curriculum and one for the ones who
have already implemented this curriculum in their classrooms. It would have also been
more beneficial for us to have some help and time to plan with our school sites on how to
adjust this curriculum to be more culturally relevant to our students.

Providing the questions in the chat before going into the breakout room was helpful.

It would have been better to use those 40 mins to dive into the curriculum with our site
teams to work on how to make it more culturally relevant.

time with our school teams not random people

I liked the Stronger and Clear activity. It gave me a better idea of what it is so I can
implement it in my classroom.

Providing time to do some of planning

Pacing.

Going more into depth on the purpose behind practices. Applying teaching methods but also
using that to understand at a deeper level the underlying philosophy we need to keep in
mind.

It was great

It was amazing. I felt like my thinking mattered. Kristen was so great with the flow,
and moving ever so incrementally through each step, getting me closer and closer without
making me feel like I was missing a step, or that the class was moving too fast, or too
slow.

It was refreshing to get a closer look at the curriculum itself. We did a deep dive into
an activity that literally opened up my eyes. I had this epiphany where I was making
correlations to the way we teach science in SDUSD. It became clear to me that the two
processes were almost identical. Many a-ha moments today.

Nothing!! I loved it. All of the facilitators are top notch! Especially Stephanie... she
gave me a set of glasses today to help me see.

Much of the session was stuff we already knew or have already been doing for the last 2
years.

More time to work on lesson planning, thinking about how to use it at our school specific,
ideas and thinking that other schools may use that can help our team.

Explanations and breakout rooms

Not enough breaks in between

I felt like there was a disconnect with the Towers of Hanoi lesson. As a student, I was
asked to come up with a strategy to solve it in as few moves as possible. We never really
determined a solid strategy. Furthermore, it was later revealed that the number of moves
required could come from the equation total moves = (2^n)-1 . When shown the formula it
was very briefly mentioned that number of moves was growing exponentially and that is
where the equation came from. Students were not asked to do any "heavy lifting" to come
up with the formula and it actually wasn't even explained how the "teacher" came up with
the (2^n)-1. Also, later on during the number talks, somebody gave a wrong answer and the
facilitator did not seem to notice and just moved on which would confuse students trying
to formulate a solid understanding.

The presenter was well prepared.

I did not seem to understand what was being taught from the Towers of Hanoi lesson.

Loved her - very clear, concise

facilitator was great, enjoyed learning about number talks

More curriculum time

Good discussions in breakout rooms.

I was really hoping to work with the curriculum more since it addresses so much of what is
needed in math classrooms.

Too much and too fast. I was confused much of the day.

Slow down

Today was nice to see the curriculem

Lesson time at end was difficult did not have what we need to do it

Much better than yesterday; however, some was really repetitive - the Tower Activity and
the WarmUp Practice (8th grade was the exact same and I wish Ms. Taylor's comments about
what to focus on in the narrative was mentioned before our 'planning')

Lots of great stuff, especially in the morning

mentioned above

It was OK

The sessions go too long.

talking with colleagues

I personally need way more time with the curriculum and preparing to teach it, since I am
brand new to IM

Getting some resources for IM from other teachers

I would love to explore IM on the website and get more information about how to use the
curriculum materials.

Examples of routines

I would really like time to plan with my school site. We have been using this curriculum
for several years and are already familiar with the routines and structure of the
curriculum, most of this is not new learning.

Mary Shaw-Lewis

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Mary Shaw-Lewis

Mary is very positive. She makes the Zoom session more enjoyable.

Teachers having an opportunity to share with each other

More time for teachers to do that

Everything: Organized, knowledgeable, courageous, and enlightening

More time...

Very Responsive. But trying to get too much content into the session. We had amazing
conversations and then the content was rushed. Less content, more conversations.

Conversations, facilitator built a trusting space

less content. The content is heavy and this session was at the end of the day. More space
for conversation.

Mary was fantastic. She was engaging and kept us on-task even at the end of a long day.
She is so positive and energetic.

Everything.

Maybe less material to get through. We got stuck on some conversations but they were great
conversations. If there had been less stuff to get through, it might not have felt so
rushed at th

Positive interaction between participants

Nothing, it was great!

I enjoyed the conversations we had around the inquiry cycle and how

Nothing, it was great!

It was great

Everything Mary was knowledgeable fun and engaging

Nothing

Mary was lively and engaging throughout our session. Her passion for the work was evident.
She allowed multiple opportunities for interactions from participants and modeled many of
the strategies and beliefs of the IM curriculum. She provided a safe space to engage.

High levels of participation, challenging us to think deeply about our own beliefs and
experiences and align them with how we provide learning experiences for our students.
She allowed multiple opportunities to engage in self-reflection while also allowing us
to experience the curriculum through participating in an actual activity. She listened
intently.

More time :)

the dialogue

can't think of anything

So much great information!

Loved the information about inequities that exhist

More time to talk with colleagues

Super! Friendly, supportive, smart, kind.

using particular justice vocabulary like race, racism, equity. There was a reference to

more white people being quiet to allow space for BIPOC (I include myself in this
critique,)

Today was fantastic. Facilitators led a very deep and touchy conversation about race and
white supremacy topics in education!

The conversations were very rich!

Discussing biases that affect teaching and student learning.

More dicussion about the curriculumn.

Excellent session. I'm excited about continuing the discussion about race and how the
systemic oppression affects the African diaspora.

Everything: Organized, knowledgeable, courageous, and enlightening

More time to discuss the impact of race and white supremacy in curriculum and standards.

Having an open dialogue and a safe environment to have these discussions

Nothing, it was great!

Thanks!

I appreciated the pacing of the session. We kept it moving.

A lot of very big topics were brought up. It's a difficult setting to explore those on a
deeper level.

She was great!

A lot of great discussions.

Nothing

Great session

Thank you for a great session. Wonderful facilitator!

Breakout Room Discussions

the discussions were very thought provoking

tech issues with the moodle entry

Sheena Lights

Quantitative

Qualitative

All Responses for Sheena Lights

Timing